Determining your target audience is one of the more challenging social marketing aspects. Once you know who your target audience is, it will be easier to run campaigns that are more relevant and yield better results.
This guide will help you understand a targeted audience and how to reach them through social media.
What is the target audience?
A target audience can be defined as a group that is most likely to show interest in your product or services. Members of this group tend to share similar traits.
Here are some examples of the target audience.
Canva is a design tool that has a large audience of designers. This audience can also be segmented based on how it’s used.
Teachers, for example, are a target audience of Canva. They may use it to create worksheets and infographics.
Canva’s target audience is social marketers, who require creating captivating visuals for their social media and digital campaigns.
Why should you define the target audience?
Why is it essential to define a target market? Here are some ways that marketing to a target audience can be beneficial:
Your advertising budget can be spent more efficiently.
You can choose which platforms you want to concentrate on.
You can create messaging that resonates with your current and future customers. It is easier to earn their loyalty and connect with them.
Let’s look at who your audience is now that you understand why defining your audience is essential.
Take a closer view of your current audience
Start by examining who is already following or purchasing from you.
Here are some questions to help you through this step.
What is the current audience of your business?
Monitor your social media interactions and who interacts with you. Who shares, likes, and comments on your content? Search for similar characteristics, such as language, age, location, and interest.
You can then use this demographic information to target people similar to those who still need to follow your brand.
What information is being sought and why?
Understanding your audience will allow you to understand better what they want and how they interact. You’ll also identify their needs and learn how to reach them via social media.
There are many reasons people follow brands on social networks. You’ll need to adjust your content strategy for social media.
The top four reasons that users want brands to utilize social media to connect with people include:
Connect with people who share your interests (57%).
Meeting people who are different (52%).
Learn new skills (42%).
Build community (36%).
Where can they find this information?
What social media platforms are your target audience most active on? Answering that question will let you know where your marketing efforts should focus.
Launching a campaign on Twitter, for example, is not a good idea if most of your audience is active on Instagram. Your content strategy will be determined by what your audience wants and which platform they prefer.
What is the subject?
What are the likes and dislikes of your target audience? What are their challenges and solutions? What do they say about your product or brand? Understanding their pain points and desires will be easier if you know the answers.
A platform like Sprout Social’s social listening tool makes it easy to distill online conversations. This tool tracks the conversations surrounding your brand and examines audience preferences. It also identifies trends in topics.
Five questions to ask:
When building relationships with followers, trust is essential.
Consider your online social habits. Do you trust brands? Do reviews by other customers influence your purchasing decisions?
Consider how you manage your brand. Do you reply to every social mention or inbound message? It is crucial to be responsive to build trust, retain customers, and attract new followers.
Define your product or service’s key benefits
Once you better understand your audience, explaining how your products or services can solve their problems is easier. What is the value of your business? Consider how your company’s key benefits align with its pain points. This will help you position your business to resonate with your audience.
Check out the competition
It would be best if you also researched the competitors to define better your target audience and how you can reach them. Ask questions like:
What type of people is your competitor targeting?
How do they reach out to their target audiences?
What needs to be added to their strategic plan?
What are the key benefits that they emphasize in their marketing?
What content formats do they find most compelling?
What is the tone they are using?
You’ll better determine your competitive advantages once you understand your competitors well. American Express, for example, has a substantial competitive advantage in its customer loyalty program. Amex Ambassadors are used to create social media content that promotes this unique selling proposition.
Content for social media audiences
It’s time to create content now that you know your audience.
Here are some best practices that will guide you.
A/B-test different content elements and formats. Your content strategy should be fine-tuned based on the type of posts that your target audience engages with. You can monitor what captions your audience likes and the best timing for hiring them.
Develop content for the different stages of the funnel. For example, entertaining content can be a great way to grab attention during the awareness phase. Informative and instructional content is better for those in your audience who are in the consideration phase.
Be direct when you research your audience. Consider what your audience thinks by placing these insights in context. Ask them questions and conduct polls to engage them better. Create personas of customers so that your content is relevant to all target audience members.
